Dataliths vs. the digital dark age

Dataliths vs. the digital dark age. Gary McGath. File Formats Blog. May 4, 2015.
Digital technology has allowed us to store more information at less cost than ever before, but in return this information is very fragile in the long term. The chances that your computer’s disk will be readable in a hundred years are poor. Information needs to be stored in a form that can survive long periods of neglect. We need dataliths; this strategy requires "a storage medium which is highly durable and relatively simple to read. It doesn’t have to push the highest edges of storage density. It should be the modern equivalent of the stone tablet, a datalith."

There are devices which tend in this direction. Millenniata, quartz glass data storage, and others. "Hopefully datalith writers will be available before too long, and after a few years they won’t be outrageously expensive. The records they create will be an important part of the long-term preservation of knowledge."


[M-Discs really are the only solution along these lines at present. They are long lived, inexpensive, easy to create and read, and created according to standards. -cle]

Digital Preservation Matters.